Amazingly cheap Danners

I'm fighting the urge to order these sick Danners for myself.  They're no Mountain Light II's, but neither are they $300.

Only $75 plus $12.10 domestic shipping for some kick-ass boots with hardcore Vibram soles.  I love Etsy.

The Story of 0

And sometimes 1.  I love boots - really love them - yet I currently own only a single, lonely pair.  On any given day in the past year, I probably didn't even have that.  No boots, despite the many, many hours I've spent looking at them online.

I get a sort of preemptive buyer's remorse.  For every virtue of a pair of boots, I find a flaw.  I imagine how useful, comfortable, or just plain good-looking they might be, but then I find the downside.

"They'd be great in the fall!  But, they won't be warm enough in the winter.  I could wear thicker socks!  But will they fit?"

"They're realllly nice-looking!  Too nice-looking to be comfortable, I bet..."

But, but, but.

So, I rarely *actually* purchase any boots.  And when I do, I'm likely to return them.  In fact, today I committed the mortal sin of returning - rejecting - one of the classic boots: the L.L. Bean duck boot aka the Bean Boot.  The 8" boot, sans Goretex or Thinsulate, in the original tan/brown color, to be exact.  Two weeks ago, I took heed of the rumors of an impending storm known as Sandy and decided to let the weather motivate me to overcome my fear of buying boots.  A few days and $99 (plus s&h) later, they arrived.

A "prep essential" with a "cult-type following," says A Preppy Life.  The company's "most iconic item," according to Sartorially Inclined.  "UGLY.  Really really ugly ... But in a good way," according to Mrs. Easton.

To be honest, I don't know what my problem was.  I tried them on, walked around my apartment, and hemmed and hawed for a few days.  Today, I threw 'em back in the box, slapped the convenient return postage sticker on it, and dropped it off at the nearest UPS store.

I'll probably regret that.  In fact, in light of all the research I've done (the strange sizing, the extinct speed-lacing system, the difference between the Bean Boot and the Maine Hunting Boot...) I am absolutely sure I'll regret returning them.  If they can get you through winters in Halifax (with the Goretex and Thinsulate, of course), I'm sure they'd do fine in Brooklyn, though I might look too much like a J. Crew ad.  (Where's that collab?  I assume J. Crew was rebuffed.  You know they tried.)

So, the search continues, and since I probably won't buy any of the hundreds - thousands? - of boots I'll drool over in the process, I'll at least get a blog out of it.

In the meantime, check out these beautiful scans of a 1969 L.L. Bean catalogue posted on A Continuous Lean.  If only the prices stayed the same...